World Boss: Break the Narrative

Turns out I might be a dumb ass. Despite being a titan spawn, and having a defense of 25, every time one of the big cats hit me I still took one to four points of damage. Now to be fair that didn’t accumulate like it did before thanks to the regeneration, but the damn things just kept coming. What’s more, every ten to fifteen of the snow lions killed spawned a Snow Lion Alpha. Those damn things could hit me even after the initial ambush.

I had a fuckload of pelts at this point. I was considering trying to craft some sort of building. Then I would squat in my lion-proof lair and write a dog-lover's manifesto on the skin of whatever lions magically appeared inside, which I suspected they could and would do.

Night had come and gone, and with it came this truly upsetting prompt.

Titan Spawn are immune to sleep deprivation’s negative effects.

Well rested bonus ended. Bonus experience will no longer be accrued.

Now each lion earned me one experience point. The alphas earned me three. That would have been fine, but now that I had a class, the amount of experience I needed to level had increased by an order of magnitude.

Attack successful. Snow Lion Alpha takes 29 points of damage.

Snow Lion Alpha slain. 3 points of experience earned.

1813 experience to next level.

After looting the corpse, I saw something unbelievable. Another person just walking through the snowstorm. They had a big red snow jacket with a hood, poofy snow pants, bright yellow gloves and boots. And they were carrying a spear. Except for the spear, they looked like a modern dumbass that wanders in this type of weather. I mean I grew up in a place that froze every winter. I walked through more than one blizzard to buy smokes. That said, Northern folk get a sort of sense for things, and wandering a whiteout like this is something you just don’t do, not if you want to live. Whoever this was, they were either badass or crazy.

Whichever way, they were not a feral cat trying to eat me. So I jogged through the snow toward them.

“Hey! Hey, wait up!” I shouted as I stomped through a soft spot of snow.

The person spun at my shouting but didn’t react to me until I was within six feet of them. They acted like I materialized out of nowhere. They pointed their spear at me, and were clearly about to stab me good.

“Whoa! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanna talk.”

“The hell are you doing out here?” She said, not lowering the spear. Turns out this new person is a woman…with a spear.

“I’m lost out here,” I explained. “I’m not really sure what is going on anymore. I just want to figure out a way to get away from the snow lions.”

She looked at me over the tip of her spear. “Snow what now?”

Notice check … successful!

I spotted the snow lion creeping up behind her. Before I could speak, the damn thing pounced. I managed to make it one step toward helping her before I was tackled by the snow lion I didn’t see.

Attack from snow lion successful

You take 3 points of damage.

HP 117/120

Titanic regeneration plus 8 hit points

HP 120/120

I am not going to lie, this was a lot better than before. Between the thick leather, and the Titanic Armor perk the sharp cutting pain of claws and fangs was transformed to a much more manageable dull, crushing pain. That faded quickly when the Titanic Regeneration kicked in.

I rolled and caught the lion with my elbow.

Attack Successful! Snow Lion takes 34 point(s) of damage

Snow lion slain. 1 points of experience earned!

1812 experience to next level

I sat up in time to see my new associate violently stab her third snow lion to death with the spear. It was weird. Each time she thrust the spear there was a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder. She was really fast also. She could sort of zip from one cat to the next.

By the time I got ambushed by another damn cat she had taken out four more. She seemed to have some sort of supernatural ability to not be constantly ambushed by the camouflaged menaces. Since she was able to avoid swipes from a Snow Lion Alpha, that clearly meant one thing… she was the chosen one. Obviously, she will rid this world of the big cat menace.

That said, being an agent of progress I did what I could to help this champion of right. That is my way of saying I punted the Alpha in the head when it dodged the nice lady’s spear and wasn’t ready for me.

Attack successful! Snow lion alpha takes 42 points of damage.

Snow lion alpha slain. 3 points of experience earned.

1809 experience to next level.

In the past killing a snow lion alpha meant a few minutes of reprieve. Not this time. No, this time yet another notification popped up just to piss me off!

Boss monster spawned.

You have killed enough snow lion alphas to spawn a Snow Lion Pack

You are sealed in an arena with the monsters. Fight well.

“Have you been grinding?” the spear lady demanded.

“I feel like any answer I give you is just going to get me stabbed with a spear.” I answered, stepping out of spear range. This movement immediately caused four snow lions to attack me. They were coordinated. One clamped its jaws on my left arm, and then the other three clawed the hell out of me.

Attack from Snow lion pack successful

You take 8+3+7+5 damage

HP 97/120

Titanic Regeneration restores 8 hit points

HP 105/120

Holy shit, this was not fun anymore. That was way too much damage. A few more rounds of this and I was going to fucking die. I didn’t want to die, like at all. Now, most of you are probably living in not wanting to die headspace. This was a bit of a realization for me. I did not want to die. As self-actualizing as all this was, no amount of clarity was going to change the fact that 4 of the meanest snow lions I ever saw were mauling me like I was a mint-filled sock.

After hearing the rumble of thunder, and its relative distance, told me help was not immediately on the way. Okay, I needed to do something to prolong my life. First, I pulled my arm free. Then I got to my feet. Next was the tricky part. I did not attack any of the lions. I focused everything I had on not getting hit, and keeping the lions in front of me. That may not sound like much to you. But not swinging back at animals that were actively tearing at my flesh, took all the discipline I had.

I managed to get my health back up. I spared a glance over to thunder-stab. She had two dead lions near her, but she looked fairly torn up. The fact that the total number of lions looked to have climbed to twenty-three was not promising.

Attack from Snow Lion pack successful

You take 3+ 3 damage

HP 99/120

Titanic Regeneration restores 8 hit points

HP 107/120

This was not forward progress. I need to make a balance of offense and defense. I blocked the first two lions’ attacks with a swat of each arm. Taking a risk, I kicked the third lion in the head. And dropped a knee on the fourth.

Attack successful! Snow lion pack takes 42 points of damage

The one I dropped my knee on was very dead and the other one was leaking blood from its mouth and ears. It sort of flopped about feebly.

After blocking six more lions I got a possibly game-changing pair of prompts.

Block skill level up. You are now trained

Unarmed skill leveled up. You are now trained.

You have unlocked cosmic martial art. You are now able to use Unrelenting Glacier Style.

The first stage of this martial art is Crushing Defense

those that resist the glacier’s force are often crushed beneath it. Perform a counter attack against Mind attribute opponents you have blocked attacks from per turn.

Things got a bit weird after that. Every time a lion attacked me, my hands would almost instinctively deflect them. There was a flash of shadow. And I found myself either throwing the cat to the ground in a way that didn’t allow them to land on their feet, or I was stomping them, or delivering an elbow to their ribs. My body was sort of moving on its own without my full input.

In the space of about two seconds, I had killed six lions. Trouble was another ten of the cats appeared from the storm. If it was just me, I would have been overwhelmed. The constant attacks were working out to a net loss of about 7 hit points a second. Thankfully the stab lady was here.

Between the two of us, we were able to kill about thirteen lions a round. Which over the course of four bloody seconds we were able to kill all of those fucking cats.

I brought my boot down on the last one, with a splat. I was exhausted. Gasping for air, I managed, “So, what’s a nice lady like you doing in a place like this?”

“The fuck is wrong with you, Doug!” she shouted at me.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, catching my breath.

“I can read?” She said it like it was obvious. She looked so confused. Apparently, my question was so stupid that I had derailed whatever anger she had.

I looked at her. After a moment a name popped above her head. It said “Angelica.”

“Huh, that is neat.”

The spear went to a more relaxed position, but I noticed it could be put into a me-stabbing position fairly quickly. She glowered at me for a solid minute. “How the hell are you grinding in the wastes if you don’t know how to read someone’s tag?”

“Again, this feels like a question that you don’t so much want the answer to, but will take whatever I say as a springboard for criticism.”

Rather than stab me, she shook her head. “Seriously, do you have any idea what you are doing out here?”

“Nope. Apparently killing lions is the wrong thing to do,” I answered.

I have never seen someone sag with disappointment so literally. The next bit was also new… to me. I have never seen someone scream in frustration to the heavens. Specifically, she was shouting the name “Wilson!” Near the end she sort of flailed her arms and stomped her feet. After that she took a deep breath and walked in a circle, “I’m fine! I’m fine! I’m fine!”

“Who’s…” I started before seeing another ominous prompt.

You are about to say the name of a Narrator.

This action will have consequences. Continue? Yes/No

I selected no.

“…that person you were shouting about?” I asked.

“Let's just get going. He is either going to appear or not. Either way, it is like four hours to the next safe zone.” She turned in a circle and then seemed to pick a direction at random, “You coming?”

Yeah, I was. Being alone with the murder cats was not acceptable. Plus, a safe point sounded …safe. I honestly have no idea what a safe point was. Games were super variable about those. It could be anything from a flashing tile to a city. I was hoping for a city. Preferably one with a bar, or tavern, or pub, or whatever they were going to call it. I needed a drink. …okay I wanted one.

Angelica and I sort of fell into a rhythm. She would walk in front. A snow lion would ambush me from behind. Then, she would stab it with her spear, and it would die in a flash of lightning and explosion of gore. I would then regenerate the damage, loot the body, and contemplate what I was going to do with 397 snow lion pelts. The current strategy was to trade them for money.

Angelica seemed to be a lot faster and stronger than me, but I seemed to be much better at tanking the hits. There was one really bad bit. The lion ended up on top of me, and Angelica’s spear punched through it and into me.

Attack from Angelica critically Successful

You take 118 points of damage

HP: 2/120

Titanic Regeneration restores 8 points of damage

HP: 10/120

Titan Spawn are immune to shock. You remain conscious.

Words fail to describe the pain of having a spear clip my spine after forcing its way through my stomach, lightning shock through my system, and thunder explode through my torso. “Ouch.” I managed to exhale smoke.

“Fuck! Oh god, there is so much blood! I am sorry I got a crit and …” she paused as she saw the injuries heal over the course of fourteen more seconds. Apparently, the titanic armor perk let this regeneration spill over to my armor. Angelica took a step back. “How the hell did you heal that fast?”

I sat up. “I have a perk that gives me health regen. It is absolutely the only reason I am still alive.”

“We need to talk about this…” she started.

“Couldn’t agree more kids. It looks like we are going to have to do some reframing of this adventure to kill the Demon of Frost. I have to say normally I am opposed to late-season additions, but this could be a solid third-act hook. Plus, I will need to balance the whole introduction to the world bit. Audiences always complain about characters doing that. ‘it’s just crunch talk that we already know’ they whine. Those same pedantic chuckle fucks claim to be confused by basic symbolism or steps in logic.” A man with a greasy voice said from behind me.

I turned to find a thin man with bright blue skin looking at us through his fingers like he was trying to size up a frame.

“Wha-Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Wilson, kid. For the next few arcs, I am going to be controlling the narrative of your life.” He said with an ear-to-ear grin with absolutely no warmth in it. “This is gonna be fun!”